*audaz

Possibly from the same Proto-Indo-European verbal base underlying *h₁ówHdʰr̥, reconstructed as *h₁ewh₁⸝₃-dʰ- and associated with giving or excreting milk and swelling with liquid. Latin ūber developed the secondary senses ‘abundant, rich’, with ūbertās, providing a close semantic parallel for ‘full of milk, productive’ > ‘abundant’ > ‘wealth, riches’ (de Vaan 2008: 636; Melchert 1986: 110–111; Szemerényi 1955: 281–86). Orel explicitly compares *audaz with Latin ūber (Orel 2003: s.v. *audaz ~ *audan). Alternatively, Kroonen (2013: 40–41) derives the term from *Heu-dʰh₁- ‘weave’, with ‘wealth, fortune’ arising through the mythological concept of fate being woven; this semantic step was already questioned by Szemerényi and more recently by Nuti (2023: 107–109).